Opening Day for Blair Community Garden

March 26th marks the opening of the long-awaited return of the Blair Community Garden. Below is a link to the pdf announcing the Celebration from 11-noon and the Work Party from 9-11am.

The event is sponsored by Sunnyside Neighborhood Association, Laurelhurst Village, and Portland Community Gardens. Go to www.portlandparks.org to sign up on the wait list.

Work Party & Celebration for Blair Community Gardens

Neighbors, Help SES Harvest Rain Water

Umpqua Bank is sponsoring a “Build Your Block Challenge” to select one neighborhood improvement project to fund.  Sunnyside Environmental School invites you to celebrate the rain with us and hopes that our project will be chosen for funding!
Portland gets about 40″ of rain a year. Much of that ends up polluted and in our sewers, and isn’t available to us when we need it most…the summer. Our school is creating a rainwater harvesting system, which will water the school gardens and highlight other ways to capture and reuse water.
We will create educational materials and host a neighborhood rain barrel building event to help the greater community capture and use water!  If you are interested in helping us plan or implement this idea, please contact [email protected].
Let the rain kiss you.
Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops.
Let the rain sing you a lullaby.
–Langston Hughes (excerpt)

Opening Day for Blair Garden

Blair Garden Opening Day: March 26, By Tim Brooks

Mark your calendars for Saturday, March 26, Opening Day for the new Blair Community Garden!

Portland Community Gardens and SNA have hosted four garden work parties since October and we are just about ready to open the gates at the Blair Community Garden. By mid-March, we will build the remaining accessible raised beds, improve the path system and the shed, and then be ready to open.

The SNA would like to thank all the volunteers that joined us for the work parties. We would like to extend a special thank you to Holly Wilkalis from Hands On Portland and Lamar Hurd from the All in One Basketball Academy who helped coordinate the volunteer youth groups. SNA also wants to thank our partner in this effort, Portland Community Gardens, and their key staff Dan Franek, John Iott, and Leslie Pohl-Kosbau.

Come join us for a tour of the garden on March 26. The garden entrance is located on the west side of SE 33rd Avenue, half block south of Stark Street. For more on the garden’s rebirth, visit http://sunnysideportland.com/. For more information on the opening day event, check the SNA website and listserve, or call the SNA Hotline at 503 295-1699.

Bus Riders Unite

TriMet riders who depend on the bus and MAX are facing greater hardships. Many transit riders, especially working-class families and people of color, rely on single-trip fares to meet basic needs and can’t afford to invest in transit passes. TriMet has cut bus service by over 170,000 hours leading to longer wait times between buses, overcrowded buses that pass us by, and missed transfers. Service cuts have decimated evening and weekend service. TriMet’s transfer policy is unequal and insufficient to give bus riders the time required to take care of our daily needs.

OPAL Bus Riders Unite! has a Solution:

1. EXTEND ALL TRIMET TRANSFERS TO 3 HOURS FOR BUS AND MAX
2. SUPPORT EVENING RIDERS WITH UNLIMITED TRANSFER TIME AFTER 7PM

Join us on Monday, February 21st for our Community Kick-off to have your voice heard and to get involved!

Kickoff Campaign for a Fair Transfer
Monday, February 21st
6:00 PM
St Francis Parish 11th and SE Oak (Bus #70)